DOES ATTAINING FIRST POSITION OR BECOMING A SCHOOL PREFECT DEFINE INTELLIGENCE IN THIS AI AGE?_ BY AMB. BISHOP SAHR ISAAC PETERSON

I have walked through the dusty archives of my own memory, and I can still hear the echo of my name being called as Headboy. I can still feel the stiff collar of my uniform, the prefect badge pinned like a small sun on my chest, and the applause that followed me like a faithful, fleeting shadow.

We all can boast of what we did while in high school. Some of us still keep our cracked, faded, and brittle certificates in old metal boxes, as if those papers were title deeds to greatness. Often, people calculate the number of wins they had by flagging others in classrooms, by climbing over the heads of their peers to sit on a lonely, lofty first position.

Histories of great leaders were often recorded by simply topping others. Yet, does this make a clear, cogent, and complete picture of the definition of intelligence? I doubt, and moreover, I dispute.

A lot of scholars have raised eyebrows at how classroom positions or intellect have little or no attachment to greatness. Howard Gardner, with his Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983), shattered the single mirror of IQ, and showed us seven, later eight, different intelligences. Furthermore, Robert Sternberg argued that intelligence is not what happens inside an exam hall, but how you adapt to, shape, and select your environment. In other words, a boy may be first in Mathematics, English, and Chemistry, and still be last in navigating life, love, and labour.

Others have humanely helped readers to know that the most intelligent or smart people today and always are not those who came first or held the prefect positions. Bill Gates was a Harvard dropout, Thomas Edison was called addle-brained by his teacher, and Steve Jobs never topped any class. In Sierra Leone and across Africa, the market woman who has never seen a classroom wall can calculate profit, loss, and human behaviour faster than a first-class graduate. She has never worn a badge, yet she wears wisdom.

One shouldn't equally dispute the fact that getting your wins is relatively classified by the average or yearly scores in the classroom. I will not be a hypocrite. Bagging the best brain in school is a necessity. It builds discipline, tenacity, and academic confidence, and it gives you a language to speak in a world that asks for certificates first. As I said, I was Headboy, and I know the sweetness, the pride, and the vanity of being first.

What is more concerning, however, is how today's education has burned out the spirit of interest in reading and knowing matters beyond the classrooms. Our education today is like a farm where only one crop is allowed to grow: marks, ranks, and badges.

Teachers, some of them, call students to replace marks with money, favour, and familiarity. They favour the most generously registered students in class. The child whose parents can pay for extra lessons, buy the handout, or drop an envelope on the desk becomes the golden child, while the one who sits in the back, reading genuinely under a leaking roof, is counted as dull, dumb, and dispensable.

I have seen it with my own eyes. Others, in fact, who sit exams genuinely, studiously, and sincerely are not in the first-to-tenth position. This becomes so appalling that a substantial number of resilient pupils and students both in colleges and high schools only resort to doing malpractice and other dubious games, just so they'd win that fine position of a lead pupil, a senior prefect, or a school hero.

They have learned to chase the shadow and leave the substance, to chase the badge and leave the brain, and to chase the crown and leave the character.

My grandfather told me how intelligent and articulate he was. He could recite Shakespeare, quote Socrates, and argue politics like a lawyer at the court bar, yet he died in a penurious life, without a roof that did not leak. Similarly, my father told me how he was quite smart and composed throughout his academic work, his books arranged like soldiers on a shelf, however, he is now old and without a car, waiting for a pension that never comes.

Their stories taught me a bitter, yet better, lesson: classroom intelligence without life intelligence is like a beautiful car without fuel, without tyres, and without a road.

In this AI age, the question becomes louder, larger, and more legitimate. What is the use of memorizing the periodic table when ChatGPT can produce it in two seconds? What is the use of being first position in spelling, grammar, and dictation when Grammarly can correct a thousand words in one click? What is the use of cramming definitions when an AI can write, rewrite, and refine a thesis while you are still sharpening your pencil?

The machine has taken the burden of cramming, but it cannot take what makes us truly intelligent: critical thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, resilience, and the ability to unlearn and relearn. AI can generate answers, but it cannot generate purpose. It can write a speech, but it cannot feel the tears behind it.

Therefore, intelligence today is not who can store the most, but who can sift the most. It is not who wears the prefect badge, but who can lead without a badge, without a title, and without a trumpet. It is not who topped the class, but who can create a job when there is no job, who can show empathy when the algorithm shows none, and who can remain human when everything becomes artificial.

Intelligence in this age is the boy who fixes phones in the ghetto without a degree, the girl who braids hair and builds a brand on TikTok, and the dropout who codes an app that solves a local problem. They may never have been first position, yet they are first in relevance.

I write not as one who is against the idea of winning in classrooms. Win. Win well. Strive for that first position. Wear that prefect cap with pride if it comes to you, but do not let it deceive you into thinking you have arrived. For the classroom is a small rehearsal, and the world is the real stage.

Consequently, let your intelligence be like a river, not a stagnant pool behind a certificate. Read beyond your syllabus, learn a skill beyond your textbook, and solve a problem beyond your classroom.

*LASTING NOTES TO THE YOUNG, THE GIFTED, AND THE OVERLOOKED:*

To you who were always first position, congratulations, but remember: your certificate is a key, not the house. Do not sleep on it.

To you who wore the prefect badge, well done, but remember: true leadership is not announced by a bell; it is revealed by your behaviour when no one is watching.

To you who were never called out, who never tasted the first, second, or third position, listen: you are not dull. You may be a different kind of intelligent — an intelligence that school could not measure, could not mark, and could not medal.

In the final analysis, in this AI age, God will not ask you what position you took in Basic Education Certificate Examination. Life will not ask you whether you were a prefect or not. Life will ask: What problem did you solve? What value did you create? What heart did you heal?

For in this age, the first position will not save you. Nevertheless, your relevance, your creativity, your character, and your humanity will.

Yours truly

©AMB. BISHOP SAHR ISAAC PETERSON 

-Sierra Leone 

21St Century Episdic Elocution

2025 Best Writers Award Winner, Africa.